Ricky_231

Ha - what do you know? I scrolled down looking for a link and somehow missed the giant paypal button. Thanks! @mooniac58 - donation completed! thanks!

Is the link above still the easiest way to donate? Just realized i've been "delinquent" re my mooneyspace dues and would like to rectify the situation :-) Thanks!

Right? I also straight up refuse to pay double for Bruce's amazing-yet-same-as-everyone-else's covers. Mac's cost me literally half the price, same materials, great customer service. Four years later and it looks just as they did when I bought it.

I'm probably going against the grain here, but I've kept mine outside for the past 4 years. Cost is a consideration (where I am a hangar won't go for less than $600/mo), but the main issue is that the hangar waitlists around here are all 5+years long, so I haven't really had a choice. I had the worst of both worlds until last week - I had to drive 45 minutes to get to my plane and it was still on a tie-down on the ramp! I feel your pain - those 1-1:30 hour trips stop making sense if you have to add 45 min each way to get to the airport. I'm now in a much better location - 5 min from my house, and I'll tell you, it makes all the difference, especially in convincing my better half to go on an impromptu trip to get lunch somewhere. I have a cover from Mac's covers, cowl plugs, I also bought some sponges at Home Depot and to close all the other bird attracting holes (the gap between elevator and tail cone, the little vent for the radiator on top of the turbo etc.). I have a solar powered battery minder to keep that battery at 14v at all times, and spray Corrosion X religiously. It's the little things.

I believe $149 was the early registration fee, not the hotel rate.

I've never left it for too long, but what I've seen it climbs a little faster (800 - 1000fpm? I really never left it there long enough to give you a precise, stable number) while burning 22-24gph and the engine isn't as cool. At 33" I can close the cowl flaps most days and still get a really good climb with low temps, a little less fuel burn. By the way, after writing this post, I paid a little more attention to my climb out yesterday, and I was doing 750fpm with 33"/2600RPM, 2 pax, full tanks + bags (55oF)

A little late to the discussion, but here's how I do it on my '79K -LB1 engine w/ intercooler and merlyn wastegate: 38"/2700 RPM (in reality 2650) for takeoff, rotate at ~70knots, gear up, flaps up, then set it to 33"/2600RPM (what I like to call "climb power"). Pitch for 100-110KIAS, and that'll give me 600-700fpm depending on weight, DA etc. with a cool engine.

Yes and yes. Good as new. Endured sun, rain, snow, ice for the past 3 years, no sun damage either, only the tail number embroidery got a little faded on the south side.

I feel your pain. I grabbed a couple of amenities bags I had from airlines and stuffed some of the crap in them, loosely organized by category (cannulas in one bag, foggles in another, charging cables, backup stratux + powerbank, cigarrete lighter usb port in another etc.). Now I have a bunch of bags in the backseat. I'm not sure it's more organized, but looks a bit cleaner. But then I have 37 half empty water bottles (I always bring a fresh one when I go flying...), a fleece and a windbreaker, one of those slap-on window shades, a copy of my POH (the original will disintegrate if I handle i too much - it's like an original bible that needs to be kept in an airtight box)

Who's flying? MRO is on field, I drove there to pick up my keys and logbooks. Since I was already at the airport, I might as well check if the plane had been tied down properly by the MRO folks who towed it back to my spot on the ramp. I'm taking it up today to make sure everything is in order. Day VFR. It baffles me that the urge to call people out and broadcast your superior ADM skills trumps actually reading the post, or at least asking what happened instead of assuming everyone else is a terrible pilot who makes terrible decisions. I thought this type of behavior was the stuff of facebook groups and not MS.

'The list is long but distinguished' - but here's 2: 1. pre-flighted as usual, got in, checklist complete, crank the engine and a red streak shoots up 30 feet in the air right in front of me: cowl plugs still in 2. Last night, picked up the plane back from annual, spent 2 hours chatting with people at the airport, then decided to go check the tiedowns, battery minder etc. (the MRO folks tied it down for me, so I always check). It was dark already, so I drove onto the ramp, and positioned my car so that the headlights would illuminate the plane so I wouldn't have to do it all with a tiny flashlight. Went out to the plane, realized I needed the plane keys to open the baggage door, came back to the still running car and ta-da!, I had locked myself out of my car, with the car running. All local locksmiths were either closed or would take 1 hour+ to get there. Myself and a couple of line guys and local flight instructors tried to break in, force the windows down, to no avail. Had to call my wife who drove in from the city (45 min) with a spare key. In the meantime, to make matters worse, the new tenant of the spot next to mine, where I had parked my locked car, landed and couldn't park his plane. At least I met someone new and he wasn't too mad.

Mine likes to roll to the right. Very slight roll but will deepen if unchecked. I imagine even a small fuel quantity imbalance could cause that, so I don't worry too much about it.

My rule of thumb is whatever the original continental -LB1 manual said minus 2-3". So I "limit" my engine to 38" (original redline is 40"). The manual also says that less than 10 seconds at up to 43.5", or continuous stabilized operation at 41" is OK and won't harm the engine. I translate that to < 10s at up to 41" and continuous stabilized at 39". In reality, I take off with 38"/max RPM, gear up, >500fpm, flaps up, CLIMB POWER = 33"/2600 RPM. So the engine is only at full throttle for the duration of the takeoff roll plus a couple of seconds really. Where you need to be really careful is on go-arounds - I get to full power and there's still probably 3-4 inches left to push on the throttle, so none of that push it all the way in nonsense we learnt in the 172 :-)

I had to replace one of my inner gear doors a few months ago. Mooney/Lasar said it'd take at least a month and $1200. I found a replacement at Wentworth salvage for $500 - got them in less than week. Here: http://www.wentworthaircraft.com/ I believe the part numbers are 550060-001 (lhs) and 550060-002 (rhs)

Foreflight calls out "500" for me - but would love to have it programmed on the GPS. Can the 430w do that?